Irvine Welsh: 'Time feels right for Trainspotting sequel'

It is 20 years since the release of cult film Trainspotting. Now production for a sequel is set to commence in May.

The film's characters - a group of heroin addicts - may be two decades older, but they are "not necessarily wiser", ITV News Correspondent Martin Geissler reports.

Trainspotting's author Irvine Welsh explained why it has taken such a long time to start on a sequel to the original, set in economically-depressed Edinburgh in the late 1980s.

"We are all in the same position, we wanted to do it but it had to feel right - the script and time had to feel right - and we have all got to that point", Welsh said.

Parts of Edinburgh have been gentrified since Welsh first wrote his 1993 novel, turned into a film by director Danny Boyle six years later.

But he believes the film's characters - the Rent Boys, Spuds, and Sick Boys - still exist in the Scottish capital today.

"People are the same all the time, people don't really change, they find ways to survive and thrive", he said.

Even though the success of Trainspotting made him a fortune, Welsh -who lives in America - still regards Edinburgh as home.

"I still regard it as home. I feel that I've just nipped out for a pint of milk and a packet of cigarettes and I'm coming, eventually, if I can find my way", he said.